


Something In the Way You Glow

by LikeMmmCookies



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Choose Your Own Ending, F/M, Feels, Fluff and Angst, One Shot, mostly a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:57:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5711758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LikeMmmCookies/pseuds/LikeMmmCookies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren and Rey are tired of fighting each other, both unwilling to deal the final blow. Rey wants it to stop, but isn't sure she can, or should, put an end to it.</p><p> </p><p>Originally a one-shot, now a one-shot with two alternate endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote the previous ending. This one is angsty feels. For the original ending/fluff, see the next chapter.

The electric ping of blaster fire zipped around them. Distantly, Rey heard agonized cries and panicked shouts but she shoved away the thoughts of her friends fighting for their lives behind her. Fat, chilly raindrops began to patter down around them, sliding along Rey’s hair and skin like ghostly fingers. A bolt of lightning seared the sky, and thunder rumbled in the distance as a storm approached. Rey pushed all these sensations away, instead falling headlong into the soothing embrace of the Force.

Kylo Ren swung his red-hot lightsaber down towards her head and she raised her own blue blade to block it, energy colliding in a furious shower of red sparks. She flipped the blow back at him in a sweeping arc. He spun away, her blade narrowly missing his shoulder. She gave him no respite, forcing him further away from the fray behind them and raining down a rapid series of strokes that Kylo barely parried. He struggled to move his crackling lightsaber fast enough, and Rey thought, not for the first time, that his makeshift blade must be heavier than it looked. Hers was not and she used the lightness of her weapon and her own smaller, lithe frame to her advantage, ducking and edging around Kylo’s powerful blows. The rain came down harder, soaking through Rey’s light-weight gray cloak. She could feel the ground become springy beneath her feet. Kylo’s own sodden cloak dragged through the quickly developing mud.

“Take off that stupid mask, Kylo,” she growled at him through clenched teeth. He answered with a heavy downwards stroke that set her nerves stinging when she raised her lightsaber to block it. She pushed against his body with the Force as she shoved his blade away, and he took several tripping steps backwards. She followed with long strides, lunging towards him with her lightsaber. They continued to exchange blows as the rain fell in sheets.

“Are you trying to hide from me?” She spat at him with a twisting swing. “You know as well as I do that I don’t need to see your face to know what’s on it.” She felt a twinge as she imagined his deep brown eyes behind his mask, tight with fury and focus. She reached out with the Force, squeezing it around him enough to make his movements sluggish. With a particularly speedy strike, she grazed the side of his matte black helmet, just enough leave a shallow gash. She felt his reflexive shock ricochet through her and he struggled to squirm out of her Force-hold. She lunged forward again and sent another quick flick up the front of his face, splitting his mask almost in two down the center. With a roar Kylo broke out of her hold, ripping the mask off his head and throwing it aside. It made a heavy thunk as it landed in the mud.

His thick, black waves were saturated with rain within seconds, and drenched strands clung to his face and fell into his eyes. He stepped away from Rey and ran a gloved hand through his hair, shoving it back. Then he ripped his gloves off too, tossing them in the direction of his wounded helmet.

“Stop running away from me,” Rey shouted at Kylo over a crack of thunder. “All you do is run away. I’m sick of it.” He scowled at her, and then advanced on her with sharp, cutting blows. Despite his renewed attack, Rey gained ground, forcing Kylo to retreat away from her. Eventually they broke through the tree line into an open field. The ground was thick with slippery mud. They vollied back and forth, clashing and then stepping away from each other, circling each other carefully through the muck. With a grimace Kylo reached up to his neck and yanked his cloak off, ridding himself of its soaked weight, and tossed it away from him. Rey eyed his strong frame and broad shoulders, down his long arms to his elegant hands wrapped securely around the hilt of his lightsaber. A shiver raced through her, but it wasn’t from the cold. He swung at her head, and they resumed their frenetic exchange. They moved around the field, both advancing and then retreating. Before long, the pace of their fight slowed considerably as they both struggled through the slick mud and freezing layers of rain. A thread of fear snaked through her. She couldn’t keep this up for much longer. She held onto the fear, trying to work it onto her face as she let Kylo’s swipes and slashes pass dangerously close. As he drew nearer, she feigned left, and then pretended to slip in the mud, couching down as far as possible without falling over. He swung his lightsaber towards her torso, and at the last moment, Rey launched herself into the air, spring off her feet in a low front flip over his blade. She landed to one side of him and swept her lightsaber up to his neck. “Drop it, Kylo. No, throw it. Very far away.” He wavered for a few seconds, and she brought the blade closer to his skin until he began to flinch away from the heat. Then he tossed his lightsaber away from both of them, the blade zipping off as it flew through the air. Without looking, Rey Force-sank the lightsaber deep into the muddy ground. She walked around Kylo until she was standing in front of him, right hand still holding the lightsaber to his jugular. He was panting, his nostrils flaring with rage and animosity.

“But not towards me,” she mused outloud. Kylo grimaced at Rey and then tipped his head to stare at the ground, but not before she saw the desolate look that spread across his face.

“I almost pity you,” she coldly declared to him.

His head snapped up with resentment in his eyes. “Don’t you dare pity me.”

Rey stepped closer, careful not to accidentally wiggle her lightsaber. “Why not?” She hissed at him. “You can’t kill me. You just fight and run away. You can’t do it. You can’t do the _one_ thing you’ve been tasked with. I would call you a failure, but there is nothing I can say to you, no hurtful or terrible thing I can think of that you haven’t already said to yourself.”

Pain flashed across his face, his eyebrows pulling up and his lips tightening so quickly Rey almost missed it. Almost instantly his lip curled into a sneer. “What about you?” He snarled at her. “You can’t do it either. It takes everything you have just to stay out of my head. You should hate me but you don’t. Not even a little bit.”

Rey felt a spark of fury. “I’m not supposed to kill you. It’s not the Jedi way.” Kylo clenched his jaw, narrowing his eyes at her. “You should want to. You should want to see me removed from this world. After all I’ve done.”

“It’s _not_ the _Jedi way_ ,” she growled at him. Kylo gave her a pointed look and tilted his head to one side.

 _“And all that anger is?”_ His thought came to her. His thought held no trace of the hatred that buzzed through him just seconds before.

“I’m sick of you being in my head!” Rey cried at him, taking another step towards him. She held her blade at his throat, unsuccessfully willing her hand not to tremble. They were so close she could feel the heat from his skin. He still breathed heavily, staring steadily into her eyes. He looked at her without fear or anger, but instead with a sort of serene resignation. She scrutinized his face, mentally flinching away from the thick white scar that sliced across the planes of his face. The scar she gave him. She blinked rain off her eyelashes, her gaze darting between the blinding center of her glowing blade, the hollow where his shoulder dipped to meet his clavicle, and his dark brown eyes. She felt her stare pulled towards his eyes, and she locked gazes with him. Her awareness of everything else, the rain, the squelching mud under her shoes, even the cold metal of her lightsaber in her shaking hand, fell away. The dim knowledge of his presence had lapped around the edges of her consciousness since she found him just hours before. But now a true awareness of _him_ wrapped around her, his emotions mingling with her own. He _was_ afraid. Not of what she might do to him, but of how close she was, of what he could do. She followed the line of his thoughts until they were swallowed by a murky cloud of emotions and thoughts so tangled Rey couldn’t feel one, singular thing.  They stood, frozen, locked into each other, while their thoughts and feelings continued to bleed together by the second.

_“…wish I never said that...”_

_“Do it.”_

_“Can’t. Be. Here.”_

_“…want to take it all back…”_

_“Do it.”_

_“…my fault. Always my fault…”_

Her eyelashes fluttered as Rey remembered their first fight, blades crossed with her back to a cliff as the earth ripped apart. The memory of Kylo’s half request, half admonishment as he asked her to let him teach her, rather than kill her. Purple light had reflected in the pooled darkness of his eyes, and Rey had felt a rush of chaotic and conflicted emotions that were both hers and yet entirely foreign. The intensity of his request and the accompanied mess of emotions had haunted Rey. Now, inches away from each other once again, Rey understood what was happening. But once again, she couldn’t tell which thoughts or feeling were hers and which were Kylo Ren’s.

She felt the burn of fury in her head. The tang of failure like blood in her mouth. A shiver of desire down her back. And a soft murmur of hope, nearly buried under a tortured passion that practically sang through her veins. Hers. His.

_“Mine?”_

_“Yours.”_

_“Ours.”_

_“Get out of my head.”_

_“Do. It.”_

With a sharp cry, Rey pushed past the hurricane of thoughts and feelings, reaching for the Force. A stillness bloomed through them and Rey could hear Kylo’s breathing slow in time with hers as the soothing power of the Force balanced them.

She still held her lightsaber to his neck, the low thrum reminding her that Kylo was a simple twitch from death.

 _“Can I do it?”_ Rey wondered to herself. _“What will happen to me if I do?”_

“You’ll die with me,” Kylo answered out loud. His rich voice shook her like the thunder of the storm that raged around them. She stared at him, trying to ignore that he had just plucked her deepest thoughts from her mind without effort. He leaned towards her ever so slightly; Rey thought she might have imagined it. “You’ll never be the same,” he whispered to her, his dark eyes overflowing with sadness. She felt his regret creep over her, so deep that her chest ached. Tears sprang to her eyes.

 “Where does this end, Kylo?” Rey asked, her voice rasping around the sadness that tightened her throat. Kylo’s sadness. His lips parted and he took a breath, like he was about to say something. Instead he gave a gentle half shake of his head.

“ _Where?”_ Rey asked again. “Are we just going to chase each other around the galaxy forever? Hunting with no end? Leaving a trail of destruction in our wake as we just fight and run and fight and run.”

“What else is there, Rey?” Kylo said her name like a plea, tipping his down towards hers. Hopelessness swirled with anticipation inside of her.

“This,” Rey breathed. In the space of Kylo’s heartbeat, she wrapped her left hand along his face, thumb aligned with his scar along the length of his nose to his brow, her palm covering the rest of his scar, fingertips stretched out from his temples to his jawline. His shock seared through them, with terror and fractured hope on its heels.

Rey pressed her hands into his skin, concentrating on the raised, ropey scar. She took a deep breath, determination coiling inside her. Then she retracted the blade of her lightsaber with an electric hiss and tossed it lightly away from them. Kylo’s eyes widened as another ripple of shock coursed through them. She brought her now free hand up to his face, spreading her hand against it to mirror the other side. Kylo didn’t move, but she could feel him shaking under her touch.

Tightly gripping his face as if to anchor herself to something physical, she stepped further into their collective tempest of emotion. Her eyes slid shut and she reached out for the Force, wrapping it around them like a thick fog. Rey brought her attention to her hand opposite his scar. She felt the unbroken meeting of his nose and his cheekbone, the surprising softness of his cheek, and the strong angle of his jaw. Bringing her attention to both hands, she willed them to match. She wove the Force into her intention, letting it flow through her rather than pushing it to bend to her will. Kylo gasped and shuddered, wrenching out of her grasp and stumbling backwards. Rey stood, hands hovering in the air where Kylo’s face was. She could feel their bond fading as he moved further away. Kylo ran a hand along his face where his scar used to be. There was only smooth, unblemished skin. She searched his face as he stared hard at her, his expression inscrutable.

 _“What have I done?”_ Sudden fear and doubt threatened to consume her.

Kylo’s hands dropped to his sides. Then he was striding towards her. _“He’s going to kill me,”_ she thought in the instant before her reached her.

She felt his body crash into hers, his steely arms wrapping around her and his hands pressing into the small of her back. He crushed his lips against hers and Rey was sucked into their bond in a blaze of heat and naked desire that eclipsed everything else. Her hands, still hovering in the air, came down to his shoulders. She snaked one arm around his neck and tangled the other hand through his thick hair, dragging her nails along his scalp. She tightened her grip, desperate to be closer, and she opened her mouth to him. His lips tasted like rain. He brought one hand up and slid it along her jawline, cradling her face in his hand with a tenderness that belied the hungry violence of his kiss. He caught her bottom lip between his teeth and bit down until Rey moaned with pain and pleasure. She responded by wrapping her fingers tighter into his hair and sinking her fingernails into the taut skin of his neck. The universe narrowed as Rey and Kylo melted into each other.

All at once, realization exploded between them and Kylo ripped away from Rey, stumbling backwards with a Force-push that sent both of them flying. She landed hard in the squelching mud. Kylo slipped, but regained his balance, barely avoiding a similar tumble to the ground. She stared at him, shell-shocked. Frigid water seeped into her clothes, sucking away the heat where Kylo’s body had pressed against hers. His already pale face was ashen and near-panic battled with raw desire in his dark eyes.

Rey’s heart thudded against her ribs, her heavy breaths downing out the pelting of the rain inside her head. Kylo’s emotions still flowed through her, and her throat tightened painfully. Their emotions were a storm of hot shame, rich satisfaction, prickling dismay, and streaks of horror, all wrapped in a yearning that nearly overwhelmed her. Her mind was a question and a plea against his.

_Why?_

_Come back to me._

Kylo stretched out his hand to one side, and Rey was distracted by the sucking noise of him dragging his lightsaber out of the ground. It flew into his palm, splattering tiny specks of mud against both their faces. Rey felt fear shiver down her spine, her eyes flicking to the hand holding his retracted lightsaber.

Kylo stared into her eyes, imploring her to understand. Then he turned and ran without as much as a glance over his shoulder. His form was swallowed by a screen of rain and the misty gloom of the forest.

Rey remained, icy rain slipping down her face and over her barely parted lips. She felt like she had been slashed open and all her secret longings and darkest fantasies had escaped into Kylo’s grasp. Rey brushed her fingers against her lip, feeling a bruise forming where he bit her, fighting the satisfaction of knowing it would mark for her days. She settled her hand against her aching chest, knowing this pain would remain much longer.


	2. Original ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my original ending, full of the happy feels. I wasn't fully satisfied with it, so I decided to relegate it to ending #2.

The electric ping of blaster fire zipped around them. Distantly, Rey heard agonized cries and panicked shouts but she shoved away the thoughts of her friends fighting for their lives behind her. Fat, chilly raindrops began to patter down around them, sliding along Rey’s hair and skin like ghostly fingers. A bolt of lightning seared the sky, and thunder rumbled in the distance as a storm approached. Rey pushed all these sensations away, instead falling headlong into the soothing embrace of the Force.

Kylo Ren swung his red-hot lightsaber down towards her head and she raised her own blue blade to block it, energy colliding in a furious shower of red sparks. She flipped the blow back at him in a sweeping arc. He spun away, her blade narrowly missing his shoulder. She gave him no respite, forcing him further away from the fray behind them and raining down a rapid series of strokes that Kylo barely parried. He struggled to move his crackling lightsaber fast enough, and Rey thought, not for the first time, that his makeshift blade must be heavier than it looked. Hers was not and she used the lightness of her weapon and her own smaller, lithe frame to her advantage, ducking and edging around Kylo’s powerful blows. The rain came down harder, soaking through Rey’s light-weight gray cloak. She could feel the ground become springy beneath her feet. Kylo’s own sodden cloak dragged through the quickly developing mud.

“Take off that stupid mask, Kylo,” she growled at him through clenched teeth. He answered with a heavy downwards stroke that set her nerves stinging when she raised her lightsaber to block it. She pushed against his body with the Force as she shoved his blade away, and he took several tripping steps backwards. She followed with long strides, lunging towards him with her lightsaber. They continued to exchange blows as the rain fell in sheets.

“Are you trying to hide from me?” She spat at him with a twisting swing. “You know as well as I do that I don’t need to see your face to know what’s on it.” She felt a twinge as she imagined his deep brown eyes behind his mask, tight with fury and focus. She reached out with the Force, squeezing it around him enough to make his movements sluggish. With a particularly speedy strike, she grazed the side of his matte black helmet, just enough leave a shallow gash. She felt his reflexive shock ricochet through her and he struggled to squirm out of her Force-hold. She lunged forward again and sent another quick flick up the front of his face, splitting his mask almost in two down the center. With a roar Kylo broke out of her hold, ripping the mask off his head and throwing it aside. It made a heavy thunk as it landed in the mud.

His thick, black waves were saturated with rain within seconds, and drenched strands clung to his face and fell into his eyes. He stepped away from Rey and ran a gloved hand through his hair, shoving it back. Then he ripped his gloves off too, tossing them in the direction of his wounded helmet.

“Stop running away from me,” Rey shouted at Kylo over a crack of thunder. “All you do is run away. I’m sick of it.” He scowled at her, and then advanced on her with sharp, cutting blows. Despite his renewed attack, Rey gained ground, forcing Kylo to retreat away from her. Eventually they broke through the tree line into an open field. The ground was thick with slippery mud. They vollied back and forth, clashing and then stepping away from each other, circling each other carefully through the muck. With a grimace Kylo reached up to his neck and yanked his cloak off, ridding himself of its soaked weight, and tossed it away from him. Rey eyed his strong frame and broad shoulders, down his long arms to his elegant hands wrapped securely around the hilt of his lightsaber. A shiver raced through her, but it wasn’t from the cold. He swung at her head, and they resumed their frenetic exchange. They moved around the field, both advancing and then retreating. Before long, the pace of their fight slowed considerably as they both struggled through the slick mud and freezing layers of rain. A thread of fear snaked through her. She couldn’t keep this up for much longer. She held onto the fear, trying to work it onto her face as she let Kylo’s swipes and slashes pass dangerously close. As he drew nearer, she feigned left, and then pretended to slip in the mud, couching down as far as possible without falling over. He swung his lightsaber towards her torso, and at the last moment, Rey launched herself into the air, spring off her feet in a low front flip over his blade. She landed to one side of him and swept her lightsaber up to his neck. “Drop it, Kylo. No, throw it. Very far away.” He wavered for a few seconds, and she brought the blade closer to his skin until he began to flinch away from the heat. Then he tossed his lightsaber away from both of them, the blade zipping off as it flew through the air. Without looking, Rey Force-sank the lightsaber deep into the muddy ground. She walked around Kylo until she was standing in front of him, right hand still holding the lightsaber to his jugular. He was panting, his nostrils flaring with rage and animosity.

“But not towards me,” she mused outloud. Kylo grimaced at Rey and then tipped his head to stare at the ground, but not before she saw the desolate look that spread across his face.

“I almost pity you,” she coldly declared to him.

His head snapped up with resentment in his eyes. “Don’t you dare pity me.”

Rey stepped closer, careful not to accidentally wiggle her lightsaber. “Why not?” She hissed at him. “You can’t kill me. You just fight and run away. You can’t do it. You can’t do the _one_ thing you’ve been tasked with. I would call you a failure, but there is nothing I can say to you, no hurtful or terrible thing I can think of that you haven’t already said to yourself.”

Pain flashed across his face, his eyebrows pulling up and his lips tightening so quickly Rey almost missed it. Almost instantly his lip curled into a sneer. “What about you?” He snarled at her. “You can’t do it either. It takes everything you have just to stay out of my head. You should hate me but you don’t. Not even a little bit.”

Rey felt a spark of fury. “I’m not supposed to kill you. It’s not the Jedi way.” Kylo clenched his jaw, narrowing his eyes at her. “You should want to. You should want to see me removed from this world. After all I’ve done.”

“It’s _not_ the _Jedi way_ ,” she growled at him. Kylo gave her a pointed look and tilted his head to one side.

 _“And all that anger is?”_ His thought came to her. His thought held no trace of the hatred that buzzed through him just seconds before.

“I’m sick of you being in my head!” Rey cried at him, taking another step towards him. She held her blade at his throat, unsuccessfully willing her hand not to tremble. They were so close she could feel the heat from his skin. He still breathed heavily, staring steadily into her eyes. He looked at her without fear or anger, but instead with a sort of serene resignation. She scrutinized his face, mentally flinching away from the thick white scar that sliced across the planes of his face. The scar she gave him. She blinked rain off her eyelashes, her gaze darting between the blinding center of her glowing blade, the hollow where his shoulder dipped to meet his clavicle, and his dark brown eyes. She felt her stare pulled towards his eyes, and she locked gazes with him. Her awareness of everything else, the rain, the squelching mud under her shoes, even the cold metal of her lightsaber in her shaking hand, fell away. The dim knowledge of his presence had lapped around the edges of her consciousness since she found him just hours before. But now a true awareness of _him_ wrapped around her, his emotions mingling with her own. He _was_ afraid. Not of what she might do to him, but of how close she was, of what he could do. She followed the line of his thoughts until they were swallowed by a murky cloud of emotions and thoughts so tangled Rey couldn’t feel one, singular thing.  They stood, frozen, locked into each other, while their thoughts and feelings continued to bleed together by the second.

_“…wish I never said that...”_

_“Do it.”_

_“Can’t. Be. Here.”_

_“…want to take it all back…”_

_“Do it.”_

_“…my fault. Always my fault…”_

Her eyelashes fluttered as Rey remembered their first fight, blades crossed with her back to a cliff as the earth ripped apart. The memory of Kylo’s half request, half admonishment as he asked her to let him teach her, rather than kill her. Purple light had reflected in the pooled darkness of his eyes, and Rey had felt a rush of chaotic and conflicted emotions that were both hers and yet entirely foreign. The intensity of his request and the accompanied mess of emotions had haunted Rey. Now, inches away from each other once again, Rey understood what was happening. But once again, she couldn’t tell which thoughts or feeling were hers and which were Kylo Ren’s.

She felt the burn of fury in her head. The tang of failure like blood in her mouth. A shiver of desire down her back. And a soft murmur of hope, nearly buried under a tortured passion that practically sang through her veins. Hers. His.

_“Mine?”_

_“Yours.”_

_“Ours.”_

_“Get out of my head.”_

_“Do. It.”_

With a sharp cry, Rey pushed past the hurricane of thoughts and feelings, reaching for the Force. A stillness bloomed through them and Rey could hear Kylo’s breathing slow in time with hers as the soothing power of the Force balanced them.

She still held her lightsaber to his neck, the low thrum reminding her that Kylo was a simple twitch from death.

 _“Can I do it?”_ Rey wondered to herself. _“What will happen to me if I do?”_

“You’ll die with me,” Kylo answered out loud. His rich voice shook her like the thunder of the storm that raged around them. She stared at him, trying to ignore that he had just plucked her deepest thoughts from her mind without effort. He leaned towards her ever so slightly; Rey thought she might have imagined it. “You’ll never be the same,” he whispered to her, his dark eyes overflowing with sadness. She felt his regret creep over her, so deep that her chest ached. Tears sprang to her eyes.

 “Where does this end, Kylo?” Rey asked, her voice rasping around the sadness that tightened her throat. Kylo’s sadness. His lips parted and he took a breath, like he was about to say something. Instead he gave a gentle half shake of his head.

“ _Where?”_ Rey asked again. “Are we just going to chase each other around the galaxy forever? Hunting with no end? Leaving a trail of destruction in our wake as we just fight and run and fight and run.”

“What else is there, Rey?” Kylo said her name like a plea, tipping his down towards hers. Hopelessness swirled with anticipation inside of her.

“This,” Rey breathed. In the space of Kylo’s heartbeat, she wrapped her left hand along his face, thumb aligned with his scar along the length of his nose to his brow, her palm covering the rest of his scar, fingertips stretched out from his temples to his jawline. His shock seared through them, with terror and fractured hope on its heels.

Rey pressed her hands into his skin, concentrating on the raised, ropey scar. She took a deep breath, determination coiling inside her. Then she retracted the blade of her lightsaber with an electric hiss and tossed it lightly away from them. Kylo’s eyes widened as another ripple of shock coursed through them. She brought her now free hand up to his face, spreading her hand against it to mirror the other side. Kylo didn’t move, but she could feel him shaking under her touch.

Tightly gripping his face as if to anchor herself to something physical, she stepped further into their collective tempest of emotion. Her eyes slid shut and she reached out for the Force, wrapping it around them like a thick fog. Rey brought her attention to her hand opposite his scar. She felt the unbroken meeting of his nose and his cheekbone, the surprising softness of his cheek, and the strong angle of his jaw. Bringing her attention to both hands, she willed them to match. She wove the Force into her intention, letting it flow through her rather than pushing it to bend to her will. Kylo gasped and shuddered, wrenching out of her grasp and stumbling backwards. Rey stood, hands hovering in the air where Kylo’s face was. She could feel their bond fading as he moved further away. Kylo ran a hand along his face where his scar used to be. There was only smooth, unblemished skin. She searched his face as he stared hard at her, his expression inscrutable.

 _“What have I done?”_ Sudden fear and doubt threatened to consume her.

Kylo’s hands dropped to his sides. Then he was striding towards her. _“He’s going to kill me,”_ she thought in the instant before her reached her.

She felt his body crash into hers, his steely arms wrapping around her and his hands pressing into the small of her back. He crushed his lips against hers and Rey was sucked into their bond in a blaze of heat and naked desire that eclipsed everything else. Her hands, still hovering in the air, came down to his shoulders. She snaked one arm around his neck and tangled the other hand through his thick hair, dragging her nails along his scalp. She tightened her grip, desperate to be closer, and she opened her mouth to him. His lips tasted like rain. He brought one hand up and slid it along her jawline, cradling her face in his hands.

Slowly, the bruising pressure of his lips ebbed to a soft kiss. She sighed against his mouth as he pulled away and brushed a piece of damp hair from her forehead with his thumb. The rain had stopped. She attempted to wipe the rain from his face with her sleeve.

“This isn’t really working,” she muttered, trying to wring some moisture from her sleeve. Rey felt his amusement ripple through her before he broke into an easy smile. Rey felt everything inside of her shift. His smile softened his face, smoothing his normally tense expression into lazy lines; it was the kind of smile that belonged somewhere free, stretched out in the sunshine, death and destruction a million lightyears away. It was the kind of smile Rey never thought she’d see. She stretched up on her tiptoes and he met her halfway, both of them dissolving into a gentle kiss. Rey buried her face in his chest as his arms slid around her and he pressed his lips to her hair. Rey felt drained. Drained of all the anger, bitterness, and loneliness she had stuffed inside her for so long.

“Kylo,” she murmured, lips moving against his rough, black shirt.

“Yes?” His voice rumbled through her.

Rey tipped her head back to look him in the eyes. “Can we do this?” She asked, echoing her earlier, darker question to herself. Kylo brushed his fingers across her cheek. His mouth quirked up into a bittersweet smile.

“We’ll never be the same.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic eeeevvverr. It's messy and short but I did it! I hope it was at least mildly entertaining. Leave all your comments, mean or nice! I want to get better as a writer. 
> 
> Title from the song "Halo" by Noosa.


End file.
